Partner Universities

Universities are vital to the sustainable operations of GridEd due to the substantial resources required for the preparation and dissemination of training and educational materials. Additionally, the capability of universities to transfer ongoing cutting-edge research into educational programs is essential to enhancing engineers' skill sets by training them on the latest technology required to manage and operate the future grid. University participants receive commitments via subcontracts with EPRI as part of GridEd. They are supported by GridEd and have roles as primary developers of the curriculum and will provide early-stage delivery of the curriculum.

Roles and responsibilities include:

  • Lead development of curriculum and training materials.
  • Develop and incorporate new courses into traditional power system/engineering programs and/or update the course content of existing programs.
  • Develop and offer new post-graduate level power system courses focusing on PV and other distributed renewable technology.
  • Develop and offer continuing education courses for professional utility engineers.
  • Develop open-source/ online/ electronic materials as part of tech transfer.
  • Execute training.
  • Bring new findings from continuing research into curriculum and/or new training materials.

Stony Brook University
The project team consists of experts in power systems, cloud computing, machine learning, stochastic control, analytical modeling, energy-efficient computing, information inference, renewable energy integration, infrastructure resilience & security, statistical inference, game theory, and cyber security. Stony Brook University has experience with the complete lifecycle of technology development demonstrated by the industry’s first “Net-zero Energy Data Center,” which was a 2013 Computerworld Honors Laureate and includes a recipient of the 2012 IEEE Charles Hirsh Award "for the developing and implementing on Long Island, electric load forecasting methods and smart grid technologies”.

Contact: Zhenhua Liu, (631) 632-7488, Zhenhua.liu@stonybrook.edu ,https://www.stonybrook.edu/
UC Riverside
Professor Yu serves as the funding co-chair for IEEE Power and Energy Society Big Data Applications in Power Distribution Network task force which will serve as a great venue for tech transfer. UC Riverside has a strategic Academic Partnership Program with Cloudera and is equipped with an Oracle Big Data Appliance, which provides hands-on data science training. UC Riverside serves east of Los Angeles known as the Inland Empire, which is more populous (4.5 million) than half of the U.S. More than 45 percent of UC Riverside undergraduates are underrepresented minority groups and more than half are from disadvantaged backgrounds placing UC Riverside in a unique position to impact these groups.

Contact: Nanpeng (Eric) Yu, (951) 827-3688, nyu@ece.ucr.edu, http://www.ucr.edu
The University of Texas at Austin
The project team consists of experts in power systems, renewable energy integration, data science, deep learning, and robust optimization. UT’s energy systems program is well known for its research and education efforts centered around the production, distribution, and use of electric energy. It also has a strong collaboration tradition with the electric power industry in emerging technology development and workforce training. UT’s data science program has pioneered in establishing a comprehensive curriculum consisting of cutting-edge machine learning algorithms and their applications to various fields. The UT team brings valuable experience and innovative approaches to the design of new courses on data science and digital technologies for training the workforce on next-generation power systems.

Contact: Hao Zhu, (512) 471-1722, haozhu@utexas.edu, https://www.utexas.edu
Virginia Tech
The institution, and PI Professor Liu, is a leader in cyber-physical system security of the power grid. VT’s research has collaborated with industry to develop computational methods for vulnerability analysis and anomaly detection in the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system and substation automation environment. In addition to the many publications, VT has accumulated extensive experience in developing and using testbeds for evaluation of cyber-physical system security.

Contact: Chen-Ching Liu, (540) 231-1373, ccliu@vt.edu, https://vt.edu/h
Washington State University
The project team consists of experts in power systems, renewable energy integration, data sciences, optimization and control, and cyber-physical systems. WSU’s coveted power program offers a diverse curriculum that closely aligns with the need of the emerging power industry. At WSU, a rich collaboration between faculty members in power systems and computer science addresses emerging challenges for cybersecurity, big data, and information and communication technologies. WSU team has extensively contributed to educational material for training workforce on modern, and renewables-rich power systems operations.

Contact: Anamika Dubey, (509) 335-1865, anamika.dubey@wsu.edu, https://wsu.edu/